The first day of April was a very special day for Bobi Kitty as he turned ten years old! It was the first of many Early Spring Events and it was celebrated with our granddaughter, Kayleen who had several long weekends staying with us before she ended her full time Kindergarten year.
One of the earliest events was the Easter Egg Hunt in Urbana. Kayleen won a nice Easter basket for the second year in a row. She is a lucky girl!
Easter is the best time I like to have my full length picture taken each year and I do this after church so I'm dressed nicely and on our back deck where the redbud trees are just starting to bloom.
Eater is my favorite holiday. Always has been! I like to cook a big meal even if it is just Keith and I. Leftovers for the week is a good thing especially when the big ham was one of two that he and I won in a Christmas raffle. Lucky us!
Springtime this year showed us some new beginnings starting with the first calf born for our daughter and her husband. They have started raising cattle on 40 acres located between where they live in Springfield and our home in Hermitage. This year it is all about cows and calves.
I had a good time at the Hatha Yoga Retreat in the Plaster Student Union of Missouri State University in Springfield. It was great fun to ride with friends from Bolivar and meet up with some old friends and make some new ones. The all-day event gave six choices of sessions and I choose these three: Hatha Flow, Yin Yoga, and Archiectural Structure & Geometric Design of the Body in the Pose. Judith Lasater was there via video screen call and Loa Freeman was the moderator as well as one of my instructors. Both are great modern yogi masters that I have known and worked with for decades. I always learn something new from them!
This year I have joined a new local group called The Friends of the Library. One of our yearly projects is a local book sale and I worked it one of the days getting to know other members as well as being a service to our community. It also includes a bake sale and gift basket raffle.
Another local group I have associated with is Sisters in Christ which is a non-denominational church-lady group that gets together every other month for social and spiritual support. I had fun with ladies I've known throughout the community for many years in many ways. It is good to know them in this way!
Mostly it appears to involve a lot of food and is hosted by a different church each time in our county. That's a great idea!
The desserts provided were all different flavors of cookies that were all made using different flavored cake mixes!
Every day brought something new and early Spring is a great time to open eyes as well as hearts and minds to new things!
This baby bluebird was close to leaving the nest in my yard but not until I got a quick photo! This one was from the first brood this year. I usually have 1-4 broods a year from this nest box in my front yard that I can observe as I sit outside on the front patio with my morning beverage.
But it was in the evening that I first spotted a hummingbird at the feeder I had prepared a week before! These little sweeties keep me busy filling feeders with sugar water now until about mid-October. I love everything about them and miss them greatly when then go south for the winter. I keep up with four feeders the whole time and also include a special oriole feeder for a couple months. I go through about a 50 pound bag of sunflower seeds every 4-6 weeks and a dozen suet cakes! All the birds bring me great joy everyday in my retirement!
One of the most welcome arrivals in early Spring are the morel mushrooms! The first one I found was a big one!
This is also the time for fishing. Keith caught white bass early on and a lot of crappie too!
The perfect Springtime meal includes having the morel mushrooms and crappie or bass at the same time!
My daughter and her family got to experience a highly successful day of morel mushroom hunting for the first time and fishing. Keith and I were very happy to join them!
I got creative and crafted a new wreath for my front door area.
The gardens in our yard were cleaned up and ready for the frost date of April 15th to pass so it would be the right time to plant some early vegetables. So many plants were already coming up on their own!
Grape Hyacinths had a bumblebee hit early on!
The coral honeysuckle was still budding which was unusual at this time as I typically watch for it to bloom before I see hummingbirds which are already here!
The daffodils have come and gone already and now the jonquils are in full bloom.
The lilacs are a special joy as I grew the hedge alongside one side of the yard from tiny seedings the year my daughter graduated in 2000.
The redbud trees are older than the lilacs and were also grown from tiny seedlings! They run a row alongside the other side of our property line.
Then there's the special little trout flower who always shows up in different places as a wildflower. I don't know where they came from but they are native and I'm happy to have them. I don't usually mow the lawn until they are done.
The very bright and showy red tulips are short lived but right up front where I can enjoy them the best!
Virginia bluebells are doing well under the redbuds. I transplanted them a couple years ago from the wild as they are a Missouri native.
The first butterfly I saw this early Spring was a zebra swallowtail which means there are some paw paw trees nearby; their host plant. This one seems to like my dandelions which makes another reason not to mow the lawn yet!
April 22nd was Earth Day this year and we had Kayleen that weekend. Bennett Springs State Park usually has some kind of program for children each year. But this year it was a go-it-your-own event. That's fine. We found lots to do and enjoy for our granddaughter's first trip to this park. This is a park I frequent a lot as I have been into fly fishing since the late 1990s. I have also worked with other Master Naturalists on many different projects here over the years. This is the first year I am not active in that program having other interests and driving distance a major concern after being active since 2014.
Kayleen and her Babi at the Nature Center in Bennett Springs State Park on Earth Day. After walking around and watching all the fishermen along the river, we went inside for the exhibits.
On the way back to Hermitage, we stopped at Ed's Drive-in for some ice cream.
It was about this time that Kayleen had her school picture taken as she gets close to completing full time Kindergarten.
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